# animalcule
## English
### Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin animalculum (“lowly or small animal”) + English -cule (diminutive suffix). Animalculum is derived from Latin animal (“animal; living creature”) + -culum (diminutive suffix); and animal from animāle, the nominative neuter singular of animālis (“animate, living; relating to living creatures”), from anima (“breath; life; soul, spirit”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂enh₁- (“to breathe”)) + -ālis (suffix forming adjectives of relationship). The English word is analysable as animal +‎ -cule.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ænɪˈmælkjuːl/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* (General American) IPA: /ˌænəˈmælˌkjul/
* Hyphenation: ani‧mal‧cule

### Noun

animalcule (plural animalcules)
* (physiology, historical) A sperm cell or spermatozoon; also, the embryo that was formerly thought to be contained inside a spermatozoon in a fully developed state. [from 17th c.]
** 2001, David M. Friedman, “The Gear Shift”, in A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, New York, N.Y.: The Free Press, →ISBN, page 76:[Antonie van] Leeuwenhoek's most mysterious finding was yet to come, however. Inside the animalcules in the thickest part of the semen he saw / all manner of great and small vessels, so various and so numerous that I do not doubt that they be nerves, arteries and veins. …
* (zoology, archaic) A microscopic aquatic animal, including protozoa and rotifers. [from 17th c.]
** 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, “La·hwi·ne·ski: Career of an Eccentric Naturalist”, in Pulphead, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →OCLC, pages 212–213:If we are part of nature, then we are synonymous with it at the metaphysical level, every bit as much as the first all-but-inorganic animalcules that ever formed a chain of themselves in the blow hole of a primordial sea vent.
* (obsolete) A small animal. [16th–20th c.]
** 1831, Thomas Carlyle, “Pause”, in Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. […], London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, 2nd book, page 137:Why, there is not a Man, or a Thing, now alive but has tools. The basest of created animalcules, the Spider itself, has a spinning-jenny, and warping-mill, and power-loom within its head: […]
** 1928 February 25 – March 3, Arthur Conan Doyle, “When the World Screamed”, in The Professor Challenger Stories […], London: John Murray, […], published [1952], →OCLC, page 555:Is it not evident that if a parasitic animalcule desired to call its attention it would sink a hole in its shell and so stimulate its sensory apparatus?

#### Synonyms

* animalcula (used as a singular noun) (archaic)
* animalculum

#### Hyponyms

* bell animalcule (peritrich)
* eye animalcule
* globe animalcule
* proteus animalcule (amoeba)
* slipper animalcule (paramecium)
* sun animalcule (heliozoa)
* trumpet animalcule (stentor)
* wheel animalcule (rotifer)

#### Derived terms

* animalcular
* animalculine (obsolete, rare)
* animalculism (historical)
* animalculist (historical)
* animalculistic
* animalculous (archaic)
* caminalcule

#### Related terms

* animalcula (used as a singular noun)
* animalculum

#### Translations
### References

* ↑ “animalcule, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2022; “animalcule, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

### Further reading

* animalcule on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

## French
### Noun

animalcule m (plural animalcules)
* animalcule

### Further reading

* “animalcule”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.